(107) 


HORSE  SENSE. 

' 

BY 

SAMUEL  W.  ALLERTON. 


The  two  great  parties  have  now  nom¬ 
inated  their  cadidates  and  have  declared 
their  principles. 

The  issue  is  now  before  us,  as  Ameri¬ 
can  citizens, .who  were  given,  by  our  fore¬ 
fathers,  the  elective  franchise,  the  great¬ 
est  gift  to  man,  that  we  might  have  a 
voice  in  the  policies  and  principles  that 
should  govern  our  country. 

Is  it  not  our  duty  to  sustain  a  party 
that  will  be  in  the  interest  of  the  great¬ 
est  good  to  the  greatest  number  ? 

The  Democratic  issue  in  1892  was  that 
the  Tariff  robbed  the  people.  “  Elect  us 
and  we  will  reduce  the  Tariff,  repeal  reci¬ 
procity  and  the  Sherman  Act.”  The 
Democrats  now  see  from  their  experi¬ 
ence  the  past  four  years,  that  they  were 
wrong,  and  that  they  cannot  go  before 
the  people  and  win. 

We  have  now  lived  three  and  one-half 
years  under  Democratic  rule.  They  con¬ 
trolled  both  Houses  of  Congress  and  the 
Executive  branch  of  the  Government 
from  1893  to  1895. 

We  have  had  three  and  one-half  years 
of  hard  times  and  idle  labor ;  our  prop 
erty  has  depreciated,  not  millions,  but 
billions.  Who  have  lost  it  ?  The  farm¬ 
ers,  middle  classes  and  labor.  The 
farmer  and  the  cotton  grower  are  now 
receiving  the  lowest  price  for  their  prod¬ 
ucts  on  record.  Labor  is  idle,  wages  are 
greatly  reduced,  and  hard  times  is  the 
cry  all  over  the  land. 

In  the  richest  country  in  material 
wealth  in  the  world,  with  good  crops, 
no  pestilence,  no  calamities  (except  it 
may  be  that  the  Democratic  party  has 
been  in  power)  now  why  should  a  free 


people  be  in  such  a  condition  ?  There 
must  be  a  cause.  The  Democrats  have 
abandoned  their  position  of  1892  and  have 
been  swallowed  by  the  Populists,  know¬ 
ing  they  would  not  stand  a  ghost  of  a 
show,  and  that  they  must  have  a  new 
issue.  So  they  have  declared  now  for  a 
fifty-cent  dollar.  They  call  it  bimetal¬ 
lism;  but  they  know  with  free  coinage 
of  silver  the  Government  could  not  main¬ 
tain  it  on  a  parity  with  gold,  for  the  gold 
would  leave  the  country,  and  free  silver 
means  a  fifty-cent  dollar. 

Under  the  principles  of  the  Republican 
party,  Protection  to  American  industry, 
reciprocity  and  sound  money,  we  had 
thirty  years  of  the  greatest  prosperity 
known  to  man. 

After  being  in  full  power,  and  destroy¬ 
ing  our  prosperity,  the  Democrats  now 
propose  to  get  in  power  again  by  holding 
out  to  the  farmer — this  inducement 
“  Elect  us  and  we  will  reduce  the  value 
of  a  dollar  to  fifty  cents  or  in  plain 
English:  “  We  are  in  favor  of  rqjmdi- 
ation .” 

THE  FARMER. 

I  have  always  felt  that  the  success  of 
this  great  Republican  Government  de¬ 
pended  on  the  intelligence  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  farmer 

I  am  a  farmer.  I  spent  ten  years  of  my 
life  behind  a  plow.  The  largest  interest 
I  have  is  farming.  My  interest  is  with 
the  farmer,  and  I  have  asked  myself. 
“  As  no  man  knows  better  than  you 
the  present  hard  condition  of  the  farmer, 
have  we  not  a  great  interest  in  this  cam¬ 
paign  ?  ”  > 


2 


A 


CAUSE  OF  THE  DEPRESSION. 

Now  let  us  be  honest  with  ourselves 
and  discuss  this  question  on  its  merits, 
with  no  prejudice  nor  ill  will  to  any  one. 

First:  What  has  brought  about  this 
great  depression  ?  The  fundamental 
principle  of  the  Democratic  party  is 
against  Protection  of  American  industry. 
That  the  Government  should  not  in  any 
sense  assume  a  parental  Protection  to  its 
own  people. 

In  1844  they  opposed  free  schools,  acting 
on  the  theory  that  the  Government  should 
not  be  in  any  sense  parental  in  the  inter¬ 
est  of  its  people.  But  they  now  stand  for 
free  schools  and  I  have  always  been  in 
hopes  they  would  be  in  favor  of  Protec¬ 
tion  to  our  own  industries. 

You  ought  not  to  reduce  the  wages  of 
the  laborer ,  you  do  not  reduce  him  so¬ 
cially,  morally  and  intellectually.  With 
reciprocity  repealed,  closing  the  markets 
of  the  world  against  our  farm  products, 
and  cutting  off  the  revenue  of  our  Gov¬ 
ernment,  gold  in  our  Treasury  began 
to  go  abroad  to  pay  for  foreign  made 
goods.  The  repeal  of  reciprocity  reduced 
our  exports  of  bread  stuffs  from  two  hun¬ 
dred  and  nineteen  millions  of  dollars  to 
one  hundred  and  fourteen  millions,  and 
we  are  now  selling  our  grain  for  nothing 
because  our  people  cannot  buy  it,  as  they 
are  idle.  Under  reciprocity  we  shipped 
this  grain  abroad. 

These  are  the  causes  that  produced  the 
panic,  and  every  one  then  commenced  to 
hedge,  and  confidence  among  our  own 
people  was  lost,  and  we  have  been  idle 
ever  since.  We  only  export  5  per  cent, 
of  our  products,  except  wheat.  It  is  not 
money  that  makes  prices,  because  we 
have  a  much  larger  percentage  of  money 
per  capita  now  than  we  had  from  1861  to 
1890.  They  may  tell  you  that  you  got 
good  prices  in  war  times,  when  gold  was 
at  a  premium,  but  it  was  not  that;  it 
was  the  demand.  The  war  made  a  great 
demand  for  farmer’s  products. 

TARIFF  REDUCTION. 

All  men  who  accomplish  anything  in 
the  world  must  do  it  by  their  individu¬ 
ality.  We  are  an  individual  nation  and 
must  take  care  of  ourselves.  England, 
France  and  Germany  will  not  take  care 


of  us.  As  soon  as  Grover  Cleveland  was 
elected,  the  Democrats  got  in  control  of 
both  Houses  of  Congress.  The  Tariff 
was  reduced  so  that  foreign  goods  could 
be  imported,  closing  up  our  own  manu¬ 
factories  and  filling  our  land  with  idle 
labor,  on  the  theory  that  the  more  for¬ 
eign  goods  we  imported,  and  the  more 
we  reduced  the  wages  of  labor,  and  the 
more  we  got  in  debt  the  richer  we  would 
be.  They  find  this  theory  has  destroyed 
our  country’s  prosperity,  so  they  now 
propose  to  reduce  the  value  of  the  laborer 
by  paying  him  a  fifty-cent  dollar,  in  hopes 
it  will  enable  our  manufacturers  to  com¬ 
pete  with  those  of  the  old  world. 

PROTECTION  FOR  THE  FARMER. 

Under  the  principles  of  the  Republi¬ 
can  party  from  1860  to  1892,  labor  was 
well  paid  and  well  employed  and  con¬ 
sumed  the  farmer’s  product  at  a  good 
price.  Now  is  it  not  clearly  the  interest 
of  the  farmer  to  stand  for  Protection  of 
home  industry— reciprocity  and  sound 
money  and  bring  back  to  the  nation  pros¬ 
perity  and  confidence  among  ourselves 
and  confidence  among  the  nations  of  the 
world  ?  The  Republican  Government  is 
for  integrity  and  manhood  and  our  un¬ 
alienable  right  to  protect  ourselves.  Is 
it  not  better  for  the  farmer  to  stick  to 
the  party  of  action — whose  policy  and 
principles  have  given  us  prosperity— than 
to  join  a  party  of  repudiation,  a  party  of 
promises  that  are  never  kept  or  fulfilled 
— which  has  abandoned  the  issue  of  1892 
and  taken  up  a  new  theory  to  remain  in 
power  ? 

RECIPROCITY. 

What  is  reciprocity,  and  how  does  it 
affect  the  farmer  ?  Reciprocity  is  to  say 
to  the  nations  of  the  world  —any  product 
we  cannot  produce  at  home,  or  produce 
to  good  advantage,  we  will  accept  with¬ 
out  duty,  if  in  your  country  you  will  re¬ 
ceive  in  return  without  duty  our  prod¬ 
ucts,  but  articles  we  can  produce  and 
manufacture  at  home  —we  will  protect 
with  a  duty  to  protect  our  own  labor. 
With  the  Tariff  and  reciprocity,  we  are 
in  position  to  trade  with  other  nations — 
to  protect  our  own  interest  for  the  bene¬ 
fit  of  our  own  people. 


8 


How  has  the  farmer  been  affected  by 
the  repeal  of  reciprocity  ?  The  markets 
of  the  world  have  been  cut  off.  When 
we  had  reciprocity,  we  sold  cattle  and 
hog  products  to  Cuba,  France,  Germany, 
Belgium,  Switzerland,  Norway  and 
Sweden.  When  reciprocity  was  re 
pealed,  these  governments  under  the 
sanitary  law,  under  a  false  pretense, 
claimed  our  cattle  were  sick,  when  the 
facts  are,  that  the  insurance  companies 
have  reduced  the  rates  of  insurance  in 
the  last  eight  years,  from  six  dollars  a 
head  down  to  fifty  cents,  and  no  live 
stock  shipper  has  lost  a  steer  by  disease 
in  the  last  eight  years. 

Now  the  President  has  it  in  his  power, 
given  to  him  by  Congress,  to  retaliate 
on  any  nation  that  legislates  unjustly 
against  our  products. 

The  Secretary  of  Agriculture  allows 
these  nations  to  declare  that  his  inspec¬ 
tion  is  worthless,  when  the  national  in¬ 
spection  on  live  cattle  is  and  always  has 
been  very  rigid.  Each  and  every  steer  is 
inspected  separately,  and  a  tag  put  in  his 
ear,  and  every  piece  of  meat  has  a  Gov¬ 
ernment  stamp.  We  allow  them  to  ship 
$21  worth  of  wine  and  they  pay  $2  duty, 
but  they  charge  us  on  $20  worth  of  wheat, 
$12.  Duty  on  lard  is  3%  cents  per  pound, 
21  cents  on  rye,  6  cents  on  oats,  14  cents 
on  corn,  86  cents  on  wheat.  Any  man 
who  has  horse  sense  enough  to  come  in 
when  it  rains  can  see  why  we  do  not  get 
anything  for  our  products  we  ship  to 
foreign  countries.  Is  it  any  wonder  our 
nation  is  poor  ?  How  long  could  you 
and  I  trade  on  this  basis.  One  of  us 
would  be  sure  to  go  broke. 

And  does  not  this  explain  to  you  the 
reason  why  the  farmers  west  of  the  Mis¬ 
souri  River  cannot  accumulate  enough  to 
pay  off  their  mortgages  and  own  their 
own  homes,  be  self  supporting  and  lay 
away  something  for  a  rainy  day  ?  Had 
we  maintained  the  principles  of  the  Re¬ 
publican  party,  we  would  to  day  be  get¬ 
ting  good  prices  for  our  farm  products, 
and  the  mortgages  would  not  trouble 
any  one.  Any  one  who  had  been  so  un¬ 
fortunate  as  not  to  have  paid  off  his 
mortgage,  could,  with  a  sound  financial 
policy,  have  renewed  his  mortgage  at  a 
much  lower  rate  of  interest.  Money 
would  be  plentiful,  for  we  see  that  in  ail 
countries  that  have  a  sound  financial 


gold  basis,  they  loan  money  for  1  and  2 
per  cent.,  while  in  all  free  silver  coun¬ 
tries,  from  10  to  12  per  cent. 

UNDER-CONSUMPTION. 

The  unthinking  tell  us  that  the  cause 
of  low  prices  is  over  product,  but  we 
know  better.  We  have  received  600,000 
less  cattle;  and  less  hogs  in  1895  than  in 
1892.  We  see  we  have  imported  $26,000,- 
000  worth  of  woolen  goods  from  England 
in  the  last  six  months  of  1895,  more  than 
we  did  under  the  McKinley  law.  We 
have  the  goods  and  England  has  the  gold. 
Had  we  made  them  at  home  we  would 
have  had  the  goods  and  the  gold  both. 
Seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  woolen  mills 
of  New  England  have  been  idle  and  other 
manufacturers  have  been  on  half  time, 
and  the  New  England  States  consumed 
800,000  less  cattle  in  1895  than  1892. 

ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  UNDER¬ 
CONSUMPTION. 

We  now  have  180,000  barrels  of  pork 
selling  at  $6.  We  had  at  the  same  time, 
in  1891,  800,000  barrels  of  pork,  selling  at 
$12.75  per  barrel. 

We  now  have  56,000,000  of  short  ribs, 
selling  at  $8.10  per  hundred.  We  had  at 
the  same  time,  in  1891,  96,000,000  of  ribs, 
selling  at  from  $6  to  $7  per  hundred. 

From  1861  to  1892,  lard  sold  from  $6  to 
$8  per  hundred  pounds ;  now  it  sells  at 
$3. 10. 

Why  are  ribs  $3. 10  per  hundred,  pork 
$6. 00,  lard  $3. 10  ?  It  is  because  our  peo¬ 
ple  are  idle  and  do  not  consume  and  our 
foreign  demand  cut  off  by  the  repeal  of 
reciprocity.  Take  25,000,000  pounds  of 
ribs  out  of  the  market  and  ribs  would  go 
up  $1  per  hundred  and  hogs  with  them. 

A  milk  dealer  in  Chicago  told  me  he 
bought  the  milk  of  a  number  of  farmers. 
In  good  times  6,000  families  would  use  it 
all,  but  since  the  Democrats  have  been 
in  power,  and  we  have  had  these  hard 
times,  he  supplies  with  the  same  amount 
of  milk,  12,000  families.  They  only  buy 
half  the  milk  they  did  three  years  ago. 
Now,  if  the  people  will  economize  on 
milk,  will  they  not  economize  on  beef, 
mutton,  pork,  and  all  farm  products  ?  Is 
it  not  clear  that  when  our  people  are  idle 
I  they  will  not  consume  ? 


4 


To  every  cattle  man,  it  is  strange  that 
a  1200-pound  steer  will  sell  for  more  than 
a  fine  well  matured  1500-pound  steer. 
The  reason  is  people  economize  on  beef 
as  well  as  milk  and  want  a  small  piece  of 
beef.  It  is  under-consumption,  not  over¬ 
production  that  makes  such  low  prices 
for  our  products.  Now,  who  would  re¬ 
ceive  the  benefits  of  free  coinage  of  silver  ? 
It  would  be  the  silver  mine  owner  here, 
and  the  silver  mine  owner  abroad  who 
would  send  it  here  to  be  coined  and 
pocket  the  profit. 

PROMISES. 

Bryan  says:  “The  sympathies  of  the 
Democrats,  as  declared  by  the  platform, 
are  on  the  side  of  the  struggling  masses.'” 

Is  not  this  the  same  boy  orator,  who  in 
1892  said  in  Congress  and  out  of  Con¬ 
gress:  “  Give  us  Free-Trade  and  we  will 
give  you  prosperity  ?  ”  Do  we  want  the 
kind  of  prosperity  we  have  had  for  the 
last  three  years  et  Idle  labor  and  hard 
times  the  cry  all  over  the  land,  in  a  coun¬ 
try  blessed  with  everything  for  human 
comfort. 

He  is  now  trying  to  get  in  office  by  ap¬ 
pealing  to  the  prejudices  of  the  people, 
because  they  have  suffered  by  a  bad  policy 
he  helped  to  inaugurate.  He  now  pro¬ 
poses  to  give  us  a  fifty-cent  dollar  by  say¬ 
ing  to  the  people :  “Will  not  your  silver 
dollar  buy  as  much  as  a  gold  dollar  ?  ” 
He  knows  the  reason  is,  the  Government 
has  sold  bonds  to  get  gold  to  redeem 
silver.  If  they  had  not,  your  present 
silver  dollar  to-day  would  be  worth  50 
cents.  Yet,  the  “  Popocrat  ”  party  de¬ 
clares  the  Government  shall  not  sell  any 
more  bonds  to  get  gold. 

ANARCHISTIC  TALK. 

The  Democrat-Populist  nominee  for 
President  says :  “  This  is  a  campaign  be¬ 
tween  the  rich  and  the  poor.  ’  ’  Did  any 
anarchist  express  sentiments  wrought 
with  greater  peril  to  a  Republican  Gov¬ 
ernment  ?  To  try  to  get  in  office  by  ar¬ 
raying  the  poor  against  those  who  have 
acquired  homes  and  a  competency  for 
old  age  by  economy  and  hard  work,  and 
by  appealing  to  the  prejudices  and  pas¬ 
sions  of  men,  is  a  cause  false  in  its  very 
conception. 


DEMOCRATIC  PLATFORM  IG¬ 
NORES  THE  FARMER. 

There  is  not  a  word  in  the  Democratic 
platform  in  the  interest  of  the  farmer; 
that  reciprocity  should  be  restored,  that 
our  home  industry  should  be  protected, 
that  our  labor  may  be  employed,  that  the 
markets  of  the  world  should  open  for  the 
farmer’s  product.  The  Democratic  party 
has  been  the  conservative  party.  Not  a 
party  of  ideas  or  progress,  but  a  party  of 
opposition.  They  have  been  useful  in 
the  past  as  a  check,  but  they  are  now 
like  poor  Old  Dog  Tray,  who  fell  in  bad 
company. 

In  1892  they  combined  all  the  “  isms,” 
all  the  cranks,  all  the  parties  who  wanted 
to  make  something  out  of  nothing,  and 
when  they  met  in  Congress,  it  was  bed¬ 
lam.  They  now  call  themselves  Populist- 
Democrats. 

DEMOCRATS  AND  SILVER. 

From  1832  until  1860  the  Democrats 
had  full  control  of  the  Government,  the 
executive  branch  and  both  houses  of  Con¬ 
gress.  They  coined  no  silver  dollar. 
The  silver  was  coined  while  the  Republi¬ 
can  party  was  in  power.  The  people 
would  not  use  silver,  therefore  the  vaults 
of  the  Government  became  filled  with 
silver  dollars  and  the  Sherman  Act  was 
adopted  and  silver  certificates  were  is¬ 
sued  for  silver  bullion  held  by  the  Treas¬ 
ury.  The  members  of  the  present  Popo- 
cratic  Party  repealed  the  Sherman  Act. 

SILVER. 

What  is  the  practical  reason  that  we 
do  not  want  silver  ?  In  the  early  ages 
we  had  iron  and  copper.  It  was  bulky 
and  lost  its  commercial  value.  Silver 
and  gold  were  adopted.  Copper  was  and 
is  still  used  for  cents.  The  great  pro¬ 
duction  of  silver  has  reduced  its  com¬ 
mercial  value,  and  it  is  so  bulky,  trade 
and  commerce  have  rejected  it.  The 
vaults  of  our  Government  are  filled  with 
silver  dollars.  The  bank  vault  is  filled 
with  silver,  and  the  bankers  are  obliged 
to  store  it  away  in  boxes.  They  do  not 
know  what  to  do  with  it.  The  Govern¬ 
ment,  to  encourage  the  use  of  silver 
among  our  people,  will  express  it  free  to 
I  any  part  of  our  country.  To  get  gold 


5 


you  are  obliged  to  pay  express  charges. 
When  you  have  free  coinage  of  the 
world’s  silver,  you  will  force  our  people 
to  take  what  the  most  prosperous  and  en¬ 
lightened  nations  have  rejected,  what 
trade  and  commerce  and  our  own  people 
will  not  use.  The  spirit  of  the  American 
people  is  for  something  good,  and  they 
will  not  be  forced  to  use  what  they  do 
not  want. 

Shall  this  great  nation  of  free  people 
sink  its  pride  and  manhood  and  adopt 
the  policies  of  a  weak  nation  ?  Shall  not 
this  great  Republic  have  the  best  finan¬ 
cial  policy,  sound  and  uniform,  and  good 
the  world  over  ? 

These  “  Popocrats  ”  are  a  very  incon¬ 
sistent  lot.  They  will  tell  you  your 
silver  dollar  is  as  good  as  a  gold  dollar, 
knowing  it  is  so,  because  the  Govern¬ 
ment  redeems  the  silver  in  gold,  and  yet 
they  want  to  make  the  people  believe 
with  free  coinage  of  silver,  the  silver 
products  of  the  world,  and  this  silver 
will  pass  on  a  parity  with  gold  Is  not 
their  platform  inconsistent  with  com¬ 
mon  sense  ? 

THE  TRUE  ISSUE. 

The  fact  is,  free  silver  is  a  false  issue ; 
it  is  simply  a  scheme  of  repudiation.  No 
intelligent  man  should  be  led  away  with 
it. 

The  real  issue  of  this  campaign  is  Pro¬ 
tection  to  American  industry,  reciprocity 
to  open  the  markets  of  the  world  for  our 
farm  products  and  an  honest  dollar,  good 
all  over  our  country  and  the  world. 

LEAVINGS. 

The  Democrat-Populists  remind  me  of 
two  neighbors  who  got  in  a  quarrel — tell¬ 
ing  each  other  what  mean  men  they 
were.  Finally  one  neighbor  said  to  the 
other:  “When  God  got  through  creat¬ 
ing  man,  he  took  the  leavings  and  made 
you.”  The  Popocratic  Party  is  made  up 
of  all  the  noisy  anarchists,  all  the  “  isms  ” 
and  cranks  of  all  parties,  who  want  to 
make  something  out  of  nothing,  who 
want  to  live  without  work,  jealous  and 
mad  at  industrious  men,  hoping  in  this 
way  to  defeat  the  principles  that  are 
given  to  all  men — a  chance  to  better 
their  condition. 


FALSE  REASONING  OF  THE 
POPOCRATS. 

The  free  silver  Popocrats  will  also  tell 
you,  that  if  gold  should  go  to  premium, 
the  farmer  would  get  more  for  his  prod¬ 
ucts.  I  say  not.  Let  me  give  you  an  il¬ 
lustration  : 

Take  the  foreign  cattle  shipper;  Eng¬ 
land  will  use  12,000  cattle  per  week  and 
pay  fair  prices,  but  if  you  ship  theip  16,- 
000  the  surplus  must  be  sold  to  the  labor¬ 
ing  man,  who  cannot  pay  more  than  his 
wages,  which  is  equal  to  2  pence  per 
pound  for  dressed  beef.  If  gold  went  to 
a  premium  of  50  cents,  and  we  shipped 
15,000  worth  of  cattle  and  sold  our  ex¬ 
change  at  a  premium  of  £7,500,  we  would 
have  $22,500.  This  would  induce  every 
one  to  ship  live  cattle,  and  instead  of 
shipping  12,000  we  would  ship  20,000  per 
week,  and  even  with  the  premium  on 
gold  we  would  not  get  as  much  for  the 
20,000  as  for  the  12,000.  Other  farm 
products  would  be  the  same.  We  would 
give  them  such  a  large  surplus  they 
would  dictate  the  price,  which  would  be 
lower  than  the  premium  on  gold. 

The  Popocratic  party  says.  “With 
free  silver,  we  would  have  more  money.” 
You  all  know  that  our  silver  and  cur¬ 
rency  is  backed  with  gold  which  makes 
it  good  the  world  over.  If  you  were  to 
have  free  coinage  of  silver,  do  you  think 
the  people  who  have  the  money  would 
exchange  it  for  something  that  is  only 
worth  50  cents  on  the  dollar  in  any  coun¬ 
try  on  the  globe  ?  No,  they  would  not — 
they  would  demand  gold. 

Go  to  Mexico,  and  our  silver  dollar  will 
buy  two  Mexican  dollars,  which  have 
more  silver  in  them  than  ours.  The 
reason  is,  Mexico  does  not  redeem  her 
silver  with  gold.  The  Popocratic  party 
protests  against  our  Government  selling 
bonds  to  maintain  silver  on  a  parity  with 
gold.  Necessarily,  if  in  power,  they 
could  not  redeem  silver  with  gold,  'and 
our  silver  dollar  would  depreciate  to  the 
value  of  a  Mexican  dollar,  and  all  our 
paper  and  silver  currency  would  lose  one- 
lialf  of  its  purchsing  power,  which  would 
contract  our  present  currency  one-half, 
and  our  $600,000,000  of  gold  would  go  to 
foreign  countries  to  pay  the  interest  on 
Government  gold  bonds,  railroad  bonds, 
township  bonds  and  building  bonds,  and 


this  would  reduce  our  medium  of  ex¬ 
change  $600,000,000.  It  would  be  three 
to  four  years  before  the  Popocratic  party 
could  get  control  of  both  Houses  of  Con¬ 
gress  and  could  begin  to  coin  silver.  Of 
course,  they  would  not  issue  silver  cer¬ 
tificates  because  the  nominee  of  the  Pop¬ 
ocratic  party  voted  to  repeal  the  Sher¬ 
man  Act,  to  issue  silver  certificates  for 
silver  bullion. 

RESULTS  OF  FREE  SILVER. 

It  would  take  no  doubt  three  years  to 
get  the  matter  settled  in  Congress,  if 
they  wished  to  restore  the  Sherman  Act 
that  the  Democrats  repealed  in  1893,  to 
issue  certificates  for  silver  bullion.  With 
free  silver  we  would  remain  in  this  de¬ 
plorable  condition  of  uncertainty,  loss  of 
confidence  among  ourselves,  resulting  in 
a  panic,  bankrupting  a  large  per  cent,  of 
the  business  men  of  our  nation,  paralyz¬ 
ing  every  industry  in  the  land,  throwing 
thousands  of  people  out  of  employment, 
filling  our  land  with  idle  labor,  destroy¬ 
ing  the  demand  for  the  fanner’s  prod¬ 
ucts,  and  killing  his  home  market. 

George  D.  Boulton’s  letter  to  Charles 
Morgan,  Postmaster  of  Barrie,  N.  D.,  is 
unanswerable  on  this  question  of  silver : 

“  One  of  the  best  urgent  motives  of  the 
silver  party  is  that  they  want  cheap  money. 
By  that  I  suppose  they  mean  money  they  can 
borrow  cheaply  or  earn  cheaply.  Now,  the 
cheapest  money  in  the  world  is  in  the  strong¬ 
est  gold  country,  viz. :  England.  The  dearest 
money  in  the  world  is  in  the  silver  countries, 
for  example  :  Money  in  London  to-day  is  2 
per  cent,  per  annum,  and  is  a  drug  in  the 
market,  loaning  between  banks  at  less  than 
1  per  cent,  per  annum,  while  money  in 
Mexico,  China,  Chili,  Spain,  India  and,  in 
fact,  in  all  silver  countries  of  the  world,  com¬ 
mand  a  loaning  value  of  from  12  per  cenjj. 
upward. 

“  In  the  other  gold  countries  of  Europe, 
while  money  is  not  so  low  as  in  England, 
nevertheless  the  rate  varies  from  3  to  5  per 
cent,  to  the  borrower. 

SOUTH  AMERICAN 
EXAMPLES. 

“  1  may  cite  as  a  good  example  of  the  two 
currencies,  two  States  adjoining  one  another 
in  South  America — one,  British  Guiana,  a 
gold  counti  y ,  with  money  at  4  to  6  per  cent, 
per  annum  ;  the  other  Venezuela,  with  like 
soil  and  climatic  conditions,  a  silver  country, 


6 

where  interest  rules  at  10  to  12  per  cent,  per 
annum. 

“  No  silver  country  is  prosperous. 

‘‘No  silver  country  has  a  stable  and  firm 
government. 

“  In  no  silver  country  is  general  labor  well 
paid. 

“No  silver  country  has  its  government 
securities  at  par. 

“No  silver  country  has  good  public  school 
facilities.” 

DEBTOR  CLASS. 

The  people  who  own  their  property  can 
hold  it  and  cannot  be  forced  to  sell  it  for 
silver.  The  poor  have  no  silver  bullion 
to  coin,  and  would  be  obliged  to  work  for 
a  fifty- cent  dollar.  But  they  say  it  is  the 
debtor  class  who  are  to  be  benefited. 
Who  are  the  debtor  class  ?  It  is  the  act¬ 
ive  business  man  of  the  nation,  who  loans 
money  on  90  days.  With^free  silver  you 
would  retire  six  hundred 4 million  of  gold, 
and  thus  reduce  the  medium  of  exchange 
50  per  cent.  The  active  business  man 
could  not  get  his  loans  extended.  The 
wheels  of  commerce  and  activity  would 
stop,  and  labor  remain  idle.  As  we  con¬ 
sume  at  home  95  per  cent,  of  our  prod¬ 
ucts.  with  the  business  of  your  country 
X^aralyzed  and  idle,  to  whom  would  your 
farmer  sell  his  products  ? 

Would  not  his  condition  be  worse  than 
now  ?  Is  it  not  better  to  maintain  our 
National  credit  and  restore  confidence 
among  our  own  people  and  the  world, 
and  get  our  people  back  to  work  again  ? 
Ninety-four  per  cent,  of  all  manufactur¬ 
ers’  goods  is  labor.  When  we  build  a 
house  it  is  labor,  and  if  labor  is  not  well 
employed  it  loses  its  purchasing  power. 
Men  cannot  build  homes  nor  buy  the 
necessities  of  life,  but  must  wear  their 
old  clothes  as  they  have  for  the  last  three 
years.  Labor  is  the  wealth  of  the  nation. 
If  idle,  we  grow  poor — if  well  employed 
and  well  paid,  we  grow  rich. 

Booker  Washington  says:  “Educate 
the  colored  Southern  men  and  you  in¬ 
crease  their  wants,  and  they  will  con¬ 
sume  your  manufactured  goods.”  We 
have  free  schools  and  educate  our  people. 
We  increase  their  wants.  They  want  to 
be  men  and 
of  manhood 
lieve  in  free  schools  we  must  stand  for 
Protection  to  maintain  a  higher  standard 
of  wages. 


women  in  the  broadest  sense 
and  womanhood/  If  we  be- 


7 


VALUE  OF  LABOR. 

We  have  seventy  million  of  people — 
full  twenty-two  million  are  laborers,  as 
clerks,  farmers,  masons,  carpenters  and 
manufacturers  at  $1.25  per  day  including 
board.  The  value  of  labor  in  the  United 
States  when  well  employed  in  one  year 
is  equal  to  eight  billions  of  dollars,  more 
than  all  the  gold  and  silver  in  the  world. 
It  must  be  clear  to  any  intelligent  man 
that  prosperity  in  our  country  is  well 
employed  and  well  paid  labor.  It  is  not 
the  coining  of  a  fifty-cent  dollar  to  de¬ 
base  the  value  of  labor  that  will  help  us, 
but  restore  the  Tariff  and  get  our  people 
back  to  work  again. 

CONTRACTION. 

There  seemed  to  be  some  fear  among 
the  Western  farmers  that  when  the  Re¬ 
publican  party  declared  for  sound  money 
they  meant  to  adopt  President  Cleve¬ 
land’s  policy  to  retire  the  greenbacks 
and  treasury  notes,  and  this  idea  was  ex¬ 
pressed  to  me  by  many  of  the  delegates 
to  the  Republican  convention  at  St. 
Louis,  particularly  by  the  Western  dele¬ 
gates. 

The  Republican  platform  declares  that 
we  will  maintain  our  present  silver  and 
paper  money  on  a  parity  with  gold  so 
that  there  shall  be  no  contraction  of  our 
currency.  We  need  not  fear  that  any 
foreign  country  will  dictate  to  us  the 
price  of  gold,  because  with  proper  Pro¬ 
tection  and  reciprocity  the  flow  of  gold 
will  be  into  this  country.  It  is  bond 
sales  that  take  our  gold  out  of  this  coun¬ 
try,  and  it  is  the  employment  of  our 
workingmen  at  good  wages  that  brings 
the  gold  into  our  country. 

BIMETALLISM. 

Which  party  is  the  true  friend  of  bi¬ 
metallism  ?  What  is  bimetallism  as  the 
people  generally  understand  it  ?  It  is  to 
have  both  gold  and  silver  in  circulation, 
to  be  equal  in  paying  for  labor  and  the 
exchange  of  our  labor  for  products,  one  as 
good  as  the  other. 

The  combination  of  Democrats  and 
Populists  declare  they  are  for  bimetal¬ 
lism,  they  declare  for  free  unlimited  coin¬ 
age  of  the  world’s  silver.  If  our  Govern¬ 
ment  should  continue  to  redeem  silver 


with  gold,  every  nation  on  the  globe 
would  send  their  silver  here  and  get  our 
gold.  Because  in  the  commercial  mar¬ 
kets  of  the  world  three  hundred  and 
seventy-one  and  a  quarter  grains  of  silver 
is  only  worth  52  cents  in  gold,  the  world's 
silver  would  be  sent  here,  as  they  would 
make  a  net  profit  of  48  cents  on  every 
three  hundred  and  seventy- one  and  a 
quater  grains  of  silver.  Mexico  would 
send  its  silver  here  by  the  train  load. 
Necessarily  we  could  not  redeem  silver  in 
gold.  We  would  be  on  a  silver  basis — 
gold  would  go  out  of  circulation.  It 
must  be  clear  to  every  intelligent  man 
that  when  the  Popocrat  party  declare 
they  are  for  bimetallism,  they  are  trying 
to  deceive  the  people. 

How  does  our  Government  now  main¬ 
tain  the  equality  of  all  forms  of  money — 
paper,  gold  and  silver  ?  They  limit  the 
amount  to  be  issued  as  a  solvent  man 
gives  his  notes,  will  only  give  what  he  is 
able  to  pay.  The  free  silver  proposition 
is  that  our  Government  shall  by  free  un¬ 
limited  coinage  issue  all  that  every  one 
brings  to  them  to  coin.  How  long  will 
the  man  remain  solvent  if  he  gives  his 
notes  to  any  one  asking  for  them  ?  Our 
Government  would  be  in  the  same  con¬ 
dition— have  to  suspend  all  gold  pay¬ 
ment;  all  they  would  have  would  be 
silver  and  all  our  money  would  be  silver, 
and  paper  money  would  be  redeemed  in 
silver.  So,  you  see,  the  Popocrat  party 
does  not  stand  for  bimetallism,  but  for 
silver  and  silver  alone. 

The  Republican  party  by  its  resolu¬ 
tions  to  maintain  its  present  silver  and 
paper  money  on  a  parity  with  gold,  limit¬ 
ing  the  amount  of  what  shall  be  issued, 
in  a  practical  way  stands  for  bimetal¬ 
lism.  The  claim  of  the  Popocrats  that 
they  are  for  bimetallism  is  clearly  a  fraud 
on  its  face. 

YOUNG  MEN. 

Let  me  say  to  the  young  man  who  casts 
his  first  vote  and  the  young  man  under 
age,  who  lias  nothing  but  his  hands  and 
brains  to  start  in  life  with,  who  has  got 
to  work  for  wages  or  a  salary  to  acquire 
a  small  capital  by  self  denial  and  econ¬ 
omy  ;  it  will  take  a  few  years  to  acquire 
capital  and  a  character  to  gain  confidence 
among  older  men. 


8 


Remember  that  nearly  every  man  in 
Chicago — or  any  of  our  large  cities  or 
country  towns,  started  in  this  way.  You 
have  a  great  personal  interest  in  the  cam¬ 
paign.  for  what  does  free  silver  mean  ? 
Demoralization  among  our  people  and 
loss  of  national  credit.  If  they  should 
succeed  and  enlarge  our  mints,  and  coin 
all  the  surplus  silver  in  the  world  and 
the  products  of  our  mines,  the  end  would 
be  inflation  and  your  hard  earnings  would 
be  so  depreciated  and  all  kinds  of  prop¬ 
erty  you  wished  to  acquire  would  be  so 
advanced  that  your  opportunities  to  make 
a  start  in  life  would  be  gone.  The  fu¬ 
ture  of  this  great  Republic  will  depend 
upon  your  integrity  and  patriotism. 

REVOLUTION. 

When  a  Republican  Government  inter¬ 
feres  with  your  individual  rights  to  ac- 
quire  property  and  maintain  order  and 
protect  property  rights,  it  will  fall  and 
this  great  free  government  will  perish, 
and  in  the  future  you  would  live  in  a 
land  held  in  submission  by  great  stand¬ 
ing  armies.  The  farmer,  the  middle 
classes  and  labor,  :  the  producers  of  nat¬ 
ural  wealth,  have  a  vital  interest  in  a 
stable,  uniform  medium  of  exchange. 

OPPORTUNITY. 

Never  in  the  history  of  this  world  had 
so  many  young  men,  who  started  with 
nothing  but  hands  and  brains,  such  an 
opportunity  for  success  as  in  the  thirty 
years  this  Government  was  controlled  by 
the  Republican  party. 

BUNCO. 

Can  it  be  that  the  intelligent  farmer 
and  laboring  man  will  be  fooled  again 
as  in  1892,  and  our  country  kept  four 
years  longer  in  this  condition  of  uncer¬ 
tainty-confidence  among  our  own  peo¬ 
ple  destroyed  ? 

I  feel  as  if  I  had  been  to  a  funeral  for 
the  last  three  years.  Men  are  daily  beg¬ 
ging  for  employment,  in  a  land  rich  in 
material  wealth,  blessed  by  Providence. 
Answer  me  and  tell  me  why  this  should 
be  so  ?  Is  it  not  because  we  have  ne¬ 


glected  our  political  duty,  and  allowed 
our  country  to  be  controlled  by  principles 
and  policies  that  have  been  in  the  inter¬ 
est  of  foreign  countries,  and  have  aban¬ 
doned  the  principles  that  gave  us  thirty 
years  of  the  greatest  prosperity  known  to 
man  ? 

My  friends,  you  are  to  decide  this  ques¬ 
tion.  This  is  our  country — are  we  not 
entitled  to  its  blessings  ?  Shall  we  now 
sink  our  manhood  because  a  party  has 
been  in  power  whose  theories  have  para¬ 
lyzed  our  industries  and  destroyed  the  de¬ 
mand  for  farmers’  products,  or  shall  we 
march  forward  under  the  banner  of  the 
great  leader  who  stands  for  Protection  of 
American  Industry,  Reciprocity  and 
Honest  Dollars, 

william  mckinley. 

- -♦ - 

Why  the  American  People  Should  Reject 
Free  Coinage  of  Silver. 


1st. — It  would  destroy  our  national  credit 
and  we  would  be  classed  with  the 
weak  nations  of  the  world. 

2d. — It  would  keep  our  people  in  an  un¬ 
certain  state  with  no  confidence 
among  ourselves,  business  would  be 
paralyzed  and  we  would  have  four 
years  more  of  hard  times. 

3d. — It  would  drive  all  our  gold  out  of 
circulation,  and  when  we  did  not  re¬ 
deem  in  gold  it  would  reduce  the 
intrinsic  value  of  our  silver  and  pa¬ 
per  money  to  50  cents  on  the  dollar, 
contracting  our  currency  over  one- 
half. 

4th. — It  would  destroy  the  farmer’s  home 
market  and  he  would  be  obliged  to 
sell  his  product  at  extremely  low 
prices. 

The  successful  farmer  makes  it  possible 
for  the  merchant  and  manufacturer  and 
all  our  industries  to  be  prosperous,  giving 
employment  to  labor. 


Published  by 

Republican  National  Committee, 
New  York. 


